3D Modelling

You know when you start something, and later in think to yourself "why the f*** did I do this?" - 3d modelling is like that....

I have nothing but respect for anyone who can take a blank screen, and think to themselves "I can design that.."

I can 3d model - not very well, but good enough to get by, as can be seen from this gallery of snapshots from Wings3d...

This is Judge Dredd's lawgiver mk1, ready for Poser

Work In Progress - A holster for a Space 1999 Stun Gun prop

A Sonic Probe, scaled ready for Poser

Wings3D - Subdivision Modeller - http://www.wings3d.com

UVMapper Classic - UVMapping of textures/models - http://www.uvmapper.com

Compose - Java OBJ modifier -  http://www.tir.com/~johnwind/Compose11.zip

OBJaction Mover by MAZ - Allows you to legally export OBJ models based on copyrighted gemoetry - http://www.sandylodge.demon.co.uk/files/mover101.zip

Tips for Wings3D modelling for Poser

• Add detail as you are going - smoothing at the end does work, but can cause problems.  It's better to add more detail before smoothing....
  
• Don't delete your construction lines - can cause problems with smoothing...
• If working with imported OBJ's, remember to use compose to group everything together first
  
• Export using quads
• Import at 20%

Possible fix for Intel Graphics issues (Author - ChaDuke: From the original post on the Wings3D forum...)

I just installed Wings on a machine with an Intel 82865G integrated board and was having an issue with the top menu items not showing up as well as the wireframe not showing on one side of the model if I was using a virtual mirror and the view was zoomed out a bit.

Anyways, I noticed a few other people with Intel boards were having this issue. I have the latest drivers for my board installed and they include an "Intel(R) Extreme Graphics 2" control center which can be accessed by clicking the icon it places in your taskbar (bottom right), or going into your display properties (right-click on desktop, choose properties, then settings tab, then Advanced button, look for Intel tab).

In this control center area there's a button called "3D Settings", and in the 3D settings window there's a setting called "Depth Buffer Bit Depth", which will have 3 settings.
"Default" is what it normally has, then there's "16-bit" and "24-bit". By setting mine to "16-bit" it fixed my issues in Wings3D. If I set it to 24-bit the issues return.

Also, if you change this setting and it doesn't work the first time go back and make sure it stayed set at "16-bit" and didn't go back to default. I had to make sure I clicked both "Apply" and "Ok" on all the windows before the setting stuck.

Hope this information helps out.

Tips for UVMapping

• Do not resize maps with mouse in UVMapper : + and - on the keypad scale maps correctly and without distortion.